Columbia, South Carolina: An appellate court said the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has no authority to order cable operator Comcast to stop throttling Bittorrent, a program that allows fast transfer of movie and music files.
With the new court decision, FCC’s ruling in 2008 which forced Comcast to stop its network management efforts against Bittorrent and other peer-to-peer applications users is considered illegal.
According to the ruling, Judge David Tatel said that FCC has no “mandated responsibility to enforce rules regarding the issue of network neutrality in the country.”
When asked about the issue, FCC spokeswoman Jen Howard said the agency “will still move forward to create net neutrality regulations and other new efforts that will address the problems brought by the digital era.”
In a statement, Howard said the “court has invalidated the agency’s approach in preserving an open and free Internet.”
In 2008, FCC has enforced a set of net neutrality rules that will prevent Comcast from slowing and throttling Bittorrent traffic for users. According to reports, the agency’s action was based on the complaint filed by digital rights group Public Knowledge against Comcast’s Bittorrent throttling.
The cable company first denied the reports saying that it was throttling the peer-to-peer traffic but later admitted it citing reasons that such program creates network congestion.
Comcast also claimed that it wanted to protect its customers from web traffic congestion allegedly created by Bittorrent.
Meanwhile, some digital rights groups believe that the appellate court ruling will have an impact on how FCC manages and deals issues involving consumer privacy and broadband deployment.
“Because of the court decision, there are no laws that will protect consumers on broadband services”, Public Knowledge president Gigi Sohn said.